One morning Mary awoke very early. It was in the month of May, and the
mornings were light, and sometimes the sun shone in through the windows
very brightly. Mary liked these mornings. The sunshine made everything
in the room look so pretty; even the nursery furniture, which was no
longer very new or fresh, seemed quite shiny and sparkling, as if fairy
fingers had been rubbing it up in the night.
"I wonder what day it is," thought Mary. It was difficult for her to
remember the days, for she was not yet four years old. She was only
going to be four soon. Mamma had told her her birthday would come in
May, and that this year it would be on a Thursday. And every day, ever
since Mary knew that May had come, she wondered if it was Thursday. But
it was rather puzzling. Two Thursdays had come without it being her
birthday.
"P'raps mamma has made a mistook," thought Mary. "P'raps my birfday
isn't going to be in May this time."
For if it changed about from one day to another--last year it was
Wednesday, and next year it would be--oh, it was too difficult to
remember that--mightn't it change out of May too? Mary didn't think
months were quite so difficult to remember as days, for different things
came in months. In April there were showers, and in May flowers. Nurse
had told her that, and when the months with the long names came it would
be winter.
"I hope it isn't a mistook," thought Mary. "I'd like it best to be in
May. `MAY' is such a nice short little word, and only one letter more
makes it `Mary.' No, I think it can't be a mistook." Mary could read
very well, and she could spell little words. She had learnt to read
when she was so little that she could not remember it. She thought
knitting and cross-stitch work were much harder than reading. But she
had to learn them, because mamma said too much reading was not good for
such a little girl, and would make her head ache, and mamma bought her
pretty coloured wools and nice short knitting needles, and Mary had made
a carpet for the drawing-room of her doll-house. But though it looked
very pretty Mary still liked reading best. She had also worked a
kettle-holder for grandmamma: that is to say she had worked the stitches
all round the picture of a kettle, which was already on the canvas when
mamma bought it. Mamma called it "grounding it," and while she was
working it, Mary often wondered what "grounding" it meant, for a
kettle-holder was not meant to lie on the ground. She might have asked
mamma to explain, but somehow she did not. She was not a very asking
child. Big people did not always understand, not even mamma _quite_
always, and it made Mary feel very strange when they did not understand;
it almost made her cry. Though even that she did not mind as much as
when they told her she would know when she got big. She did not want to
wait to know things till when she got big. It made her feel all hot to
think what a lot of knowing there would be to do then, it seemed like a
very big hill standing straight up in front of her which she would never
get to the top of. She thought she would rather go up it in what she
called "a roundy-round way." Papa had shown her that way once when it
took her breath away to climb up one of the "mountings"--Mary always
called hills "mountings"--in grandmamma's garden, and Mary had never
forgotten it. She thought the hill of knowing would be much nicer to go
up that way, and that she might begin it now--just a little bit at a
time. She thought this all quite plain inside her own mind, but she
could not have told it to anybody. Very often it is not till children
_are_ quite big that they can tell their own thoughts, looking back upon
them. And Mary did not know that she _was_ going up the hill of knowing
already, a little bit at a time, just as she fancied she would like to
go.
Mary felt glad when she had settled it in her mind that it could not be
a mistake about her birthday coming on a Thursday, and she lay quite
still, watching the sunshine. It had got on to her bed by now, and it
made all sorts of nice things on the counterpane. Mary's bed was rather
a big one for such a little girl, for the cot she used to have was now
her brother Artie's; Artie slept now in Leigh's room, and there was only
a corner there for quite a small bed. Leigh was the big brother of
Artie and Mary. He was eight years old.
Yes, the sunshine made the counterpane very pretty. It was quite white,
and as Mary's home was in the country, white things did not get a grey
dull look as they do in London. There were patterns all over the
counterpane, and if Mary bumped up her knees she could make fancies to
suit the patterns--like garden paths leading to beautiful castles, or
robber caves--the boys told her stories of robber caves which were very
interesting, though rather frightening. And this morning the light
shone on a pattern she had never noticed so much before. It was a round
ring, just in the middle, and flowers and leaves seemed growing inside
it.
"It's a fairy ring," thought Mary; "I wonder if the fairies p'raps come
and dance on it when I'm asleep." For she had seen fairy rings on the
grass in the fields sometimes when she and her brothers were out
walking, and nurse had told her about them. Mary had often wished she
could get up in the night and go down to the fields to see the fairies,
but she knew she could not. She would never be able to open the big
door. Besides, it would be naughty to go out without mamma's and
nurse's leave. And it would be very cold--even if the moon were shining
it would be cold. For Mary had stood in the moonlight once or twice and
she knew it did not warm like the sun.
"I suppose they don't burn such big fires in the moon," she thought.
The fancy about the fairy ring on the counterpane was very nice, for she
could think about it and "pertend" she saw the fairies dancing without
getting out of her warm nest at the top of the bed at all. She thought
she would tell Artie about it and perhaps he would help to make some
nice stories of fairy rings. Artie was not always very "listening" to
Mary's fancies. He did really like them, but he was afraid of Leigh
laughing at him. When Leigh was away, and Artie and Mary were alone
together, it was very nice. But very often Leigh wanted Artie to play
big things with him, and then Mary had to amuse herself alone. Leigh
was not an unkind big brother; he would carry Mary if she was tired, and
would have read stories to her, if she had not liked best to read them
to herself. But he had quite boy ways, and thought little girls were
not much more good than the pretty china figures in his mother's
cabinets in the drawing-room.
So Mary was often alone. But she did not mind. She had lots of friends
of different kinds. Now and then nurse would say to her, "It would be
nice, Miss Mary, if you had a little sister, wouldn't it?"
But Mary shook her head. She did not think so.
"No, zank you," she would say, "I doesn't want a little sister."
The waking so early and the thinking about the sun and the moon and
fairy rings and how soon it would be her birthday, began to make Mary
rather tired at last. And after a while she fell asleep again without
knowing it.
When she woke up for the second time the sun was still shining, though
not so brightly as before. And she heard voices talking in the next
room, that was the day-nursery. There was a door open between it and
the night-nursery where Mary slept.
"Thursday, 18th May," said one of the voices. "May's a nice month for a
baby, and all the summer before it. `Thursday's child has far to go.'
Perhaps little Missie will marry a hofficer and travel to the Injies.
Who can say?"
Then there was a little laugh.
"That's Old Sarah," said Mary to herself. Sarah was the housemaid--the
upper housemaid, and though she was not _very_ old, the children called
her so because her niece, who was also called Sarah, was the
nursery-maid. "Little Sarah," they sometimes called her. Her father
was the gardener, and he and her mother lived in a cottage which the
children thought the prettiest house in the world. And sometimes they
were allowed, for a very great treat, to go there to tea.
It was Little Sarah who was talking to Old Sarah just now. Mary heard
her voice, but as she spoke rather low she could not quite tell what the
nursery-maid said. She only heard the last words--it was something
about "nurse will tell her."
This put it into Mary's mind that, though it was quite morning now, she
had not seen nurse, and yet she must be up and dressed.
"Nurse," she called out in her little clear voice. "Nurse, where are
you?"
The two Sarahs popped their heads in at the door.
"Are you awake, Miss Mary?" asked Little Sarah.
"In course I'm awake. You heard me calling," said Mary.
She thought Little Sarah was very stupid sometimes.
"I'm calling nurse," Mary went on, "I don't want you, Little Sarah. You
can go and dress Master Artie."
If Little Sarah was rather stupid, she was also very good-natured. She
glanced at Mary with a smile, but with rather an odd look on her face
too.
"What does you want? What is you looking at me for?" said Mary.
"Oh, nothing," said Sarah. "I was only thinking whatever would you do
without nurse if--if nurse was busy and couldn't be so much with you,
Miss Mary."
"Nurse wouldn't never be busy like that," said Mary.
"Oh, well, never mind. I'll dress Master Artie and I dare say nurse--"
began Sarah, but she stopped short. Nurse just then came into the room.
"Here's Miss Mary worretting for you," said the girl.
Nurse hurried up to the little girl's bed.
"Have you been awake long, my dear?" she said. "I'm so sorry."
"Nurse," whispered Mary, pulling nurse's head close down so that she
could whisper to her, "I heard Old Sarah and Little Sarah talking, and
Old Sarah sayed `Thursday' and `May.' Is it my birfday comed, nurse?
Mamma sayed it was coming in May, and it would be Thursday."
"My dearie," said nurse, "you've guessed right. It is your birthday--
the 18th of May."
Mary felt pleased, but also a little disappointed. She had been waiting
for her birthday and thinking about it for such a long time that now she
could scarcely believe it had come. For it seemed just like other days.
No, not quite like other days, not as nice. For nurse had got up so
early and Old Sarah and Little Sarah had been talking in the nursery--
she did not like anybody to talk like that in the nursery.
"Dress me quick, please, nurse," she said, "and then I'll go to mamma's
room, and then p'raps my birfday will begin. I don't think it can have
beginned yet. I thought--" and then she stopped and her lips quivered a
little.
"What, my dearie?" said nurse.
She was a very kind, understanding nurse always, but this morning she
spoke even more kindly than other mornings to Mary.
"I don't know," said Mary. "I think I thought mamma would come to kiss
me in bed like a fairy, and--and--I thought there'd be stockings or
somefin' like that--like Kissimas, you know."
Nurse had lifted Mary out of her bath by this time, and was rubbing her
with a nice large "soft-roughey" towel--"soft-roughey" was one of Mary
and Artie's words--it meant the opposite of "prick-roughey." They did
not like "prick-roughey" things. She wrapped Mary all round in the big
towel for a minute; it was nice and warm, for it had been hanging in
front of the fire; then she gave Mary a little hug.
"You mustn't be unhappy, dear Miss Mary," she said. "Mamma meant to
come, I'm sure, but she's fast asleep--and when she wakes I'm afraid
she'll have a headache. So I'm afraid your birthday won't be quite like
what you planned. But I'm sure there'll be some pretty presents for
you--quite sure."
But Mary looked up with her lips quivering still more, and the tears
beginning to come too.
"It isn't presents I want," she said. "Not presents like that way. I--
I want mamma. Mammas shouldn't have headaches. It takes away all the
birfday-ness."
Then she turned her head round and pressed it in to nurse's shoulder and
burst into tears.